Trials And Error Decathlete Dan O'Brien blew his shot at the 1992 Olympics, but he's determined not to let history repeat itself by Merrell Noden Redemption is a huge word, much too big for what Dan O'Brien will be seeking at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Atlanta this week. It is a sportswriter's word, inflating what is merely dramatic into a moral struggle of cosmic proportions. There may be athletes who need redemption, but few need it for something they did during competition. No, when O'Brien stands at the end of the pole vault runway in Olympic Stadium on Saturday afternoon, he will be seeking simply to master his emotions, overcome the weight of the past and earn a place on the U.S. team — which are no small challenges. He will have a 15-foot tube of white fiberglass resting on his right shoulder, and as he stares down the runway, he will see the ghosts he disturbed four years ago when, on a similar runway in New Orleans at the 1992 trials, he took three vaults at his opening height of 15'9" and missed them all. By failing to score any points in the vault, O'Brien, then as now the world champion and the strong favorite to win the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon, guaranteed that he would not even make it to the Barcelona Games. O'Brien's tears dried quickly after his pole vault disaster in New Orleans, but his fears lingered. photograph by John Biever "Every pole vault competition since 1992 has been nerve-racking for me," he admits. "I get an increased heart rate, sweaty palms. I have to force myself to relax and do things correctly. But in the end I've always been very competitive." In the four years since Barcelona, O'Brien has won all eight decathlons he has entered. He has earned his second and third world championships, both by impressive margins. In 1992 he set a world record (8,891 points) that none of his current rivals have come within 156 points of reaching. Yet there is only one way for O'Brien to put his '92 failure entirely behind him: by getting through the pole vault, making the U.S. team and winning the gold at the Atlanta Games. "Everywhere I go, people are so nice and supportive," says O'Brien. "It's gotten a little out of hand. People come up and say, 'I know you're going to make it this time.'" Not that they should feel too sorry for O'Brien. In the two decades since Bruce Jenner, then training for the 1976 Olympic decathlon, had to depend on his stewardess wife to support him, the funding available to top U.S. decathletes has increased markedly. Even without getting to the Olympics, O'Brien has been making the kind of dollars Jenner was able to earn only after winning the '76 gold and giving up his amateur eligibility. O'Brien's endorsement contracts with VISA, Nike, Foot Locker, Canon and Juice Bowl yield $300,000 a year, money he has used to build a house, complete with cathedral ceiling, two decks and a hot tub, in Moscow, Idaho. He drives a Mercedes and has a live-in housekeeper-cook. But while he has not exactly suffered between Olympics, O'Brien, who will turn 30 on July 18, one day before the opening ceremonies of the Atlanta Games, knows he can't afford to wait another four years for a shot at a gold medal. If anything, the pressure on O'Brien is greater than it was in '92, according to Jim Reardon, a psychologist who has worked with him and other members of the elite U.S. decathlon team since 1993. Reardon, who in his day-to-day practice in Columbus, Ohio, works with trauma victims, seems uniquely equipped to counsel O'Brien. "The same dynamics pertain," says Reardon. "What Dan experienced in 1992 would clearly qualify as trauma because it was so unexpected. For trauma victims, anniversaries are always difficult. They trigger fear and anxiety." Like it or not, the Olympic trials are an anniversary for O'Brien. "You can't not think about something like that," says Reardon. "The moment of highest tension at the trials will come when Dan gets on the runway for the vault. Everyone will stop, every camera in the stadium will focus on him, and everyone will wonder: Will he get over?" The self-doubt that was planted at the '92 trials never tormented O'Brien more than at the following year's U.S. nationals, which served as the qualifying meet for the '93 world championships. Idaho coach Mike Keller, who works with O'Brien in the running events, and Washington State track coach Rick Sloan, who works with him in the field events, had to virtually push O'Brien onto the track in Eugene, Ore., for the 100 and then again for the high jump. "You could see the fear in his eyes," says a friend of O'Brien's. But if the first day of that decathlon revealed the depth of O'Brien's fears, the second confirmed that he could overcome those fears. After fouling as he spun into his first two throws in the discus, O'Brien was down to his last attempt, one foul away from another disaster. Without even a spin, O'Brien muscled the discus out 143'10". That summer he went on to win the national title and the world championship in Stuttgart. When he describes the last four years, O'Brien sounds as much like a 12-stepper as a 10-eventer. "The Olympics have come quickly," he says. "Each year I've tried to concentrate on that year's most important competition." O'Brien is trying to look at the Atlanta Games as just another of those big meets. "Everybody from Bruce Jenner to Rafer Johnson tells me that you can compete in championships all over the world, but once you step on that Olympic track, it's different," he says. "I can't imagine how it can be that different. I think the Games are going to be an experience for me, but I just need to be focused to compete like I always do." O'Brien characteristically radiates a breezy confidence — whatever fears may lurk beneath it — and despite the '92 setback, he has good reason to feel optimistic about his chances at both the trials and the Games. It's true that he is no longer able to string together as many days of hard training as he could four years ago. His knees hurt in cold weather, and he requires regular treatments from a chiropractor for chronic back pain. But in many ways O'Brien is a better decathlete than he was in '92. O'Brien after his pole vault disaster. photograph by John Biever "He's a much more confident athlete now," says one of O'Brien's training partners and a former housemate, Michael Joubert, a member of Australia's 4x400-meter Olympic relay team. "The guy's broken the world record and won two world championships since '92. Sure, when he gets on that runway for his first attempt, he'll have to deal with [his failure at the trials]. But he's improved that pole vault out of sight in the last four years." O'Brien is not only consistently clearing 17 feet in the vault, but he is also stronger in every second-day event except the 1,500. This past winter he twice beat Roger Kingdom, the bronze medalist in the 110-meter hurdles at last summer's worlds, in indoor races, and he finished fourth in the 60-meter hurdles at the U.S. indoor championships. "In 1992 I threw 199 feet for a personal best in the javelin," says O'Brien. "Since then, I've thrown 208, 209. But I see 220, 225 this year. The javelin is one of those events where I just kind of figured it out one day at practice." O'Brien and his coaches also believe they have figured out the reasons for his pole vault failure in New Orleans, though they disagree on the importance of those reasons. O'Brien points to a quirk of fate: He alone of all the participants in a three-day clinic for elite decathletes in New Orleans's Tad Gormley Stadium two months before the trials did not get to practice vaulting into the stadium's eccentrically configured pit because he had to leave the clinic to make an appearance at an elementary school. According to O'Brien, the landing pads extended past the front of the pit so far that they threw off his depth perception as he planted the pole. "Yeah, that's true," says Keller, "but that's really not the main reason he missed. Three or four other guys no-heighted that day, and I can still see him sitting in a chair on the infield watching them and not getting up and warming up properly." To combat O'Brien's fears about the vault, Reardon and O'Brien's coaches have taken some extraordinary steps. Last September they flew Frank Zarnowski, who will serve as public address announcer for the Olympic decathlon, to Pullman, Wash., to do the P.A. duties at a meet O'Brien was competing in; their goal was to make even that small aspect of the Games familiar and reassuring to the world champion. O'Brien had never watched his vaults from the '92 trials until last December, when Reardon obtained a videotape of them. Reardon wanted O'Brien to view the tape not to analyze technical mistakes but to demystify the awful experience. O'Brien has watched it repeatedly. Finally, O'Brien made sure he got to pole-vault in Atlanta's Olympic Stadium well in advance of the trials by entering the mini-decathlon (which included the pole vault) competition at a May 18 Grand Prix meet that was held there. "He was on the same runway, in the same stadium, in front of a large crowd," says Reardon. O'Brien cleared 16'83Ž4", which would be worth 941 points in a decathlon. But if you ask Keller or Sloan where O'Brien has improved the most, they'll tell you it's between the ears. "The decathlon is not such a mystery to him as it was before," says Keller. "The decathlon tests 10 different skills, and because Dan started as a hurdler and long jumper, in some events — javelin, discus, pole vault — he was just a babe in the woods at the time. He's four years further down the road now. He understands the demands of each event better." Indeed, they are perhaps all a little wiser than they were four years ago. O'Brien has lowered his opening vault height from 15'9" to 15'1". "I can practically sit over that," he says. Let's hope it doesn't come down to that, for the sake of everyone watching as much as for O'Brien. "The way Dan handled not making the team in 1992 endeared him to people around the world," says Sloan. "When he gets over that first height in the vault, I think there will be a huge collective sigh."